Waiting for that one vacancy sign
by Spylace
Summary: Jason discovers that death isn't as permanent as everyone thinks it is.
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Waiting for that one vacancy sign  
**Summary:** Stories from beyond the grave; Jason Todd is a Black Lantern.  
**Rating:** T  
**Notes:** Continuation of No blinding lights to the gates of white but you don't have to read it. Simply know that Superboy Prime's universe-shattering punch had no effect on Jason. Instead, he was resurrected as a Black Lantern near the end of the Blackest Night storyline. Batman is dead, Dick is about to don the cowl, Damien is the Robin and Jason has just been discovered by Talia Al Ghul. By the way, thanks all of you who reviewed in the last story, really appreciated it. More now since the weather is shit and I don't have an umbrella -sobs-  
**Disclaimer:** Do not own  
**Warning:** None  
**Word count:** for this chapter 700+

.

'You're supposed to let me go.' Jason insists sullenly. The Black Entity thrills out a twittering laughter in response, not because it is amused because he expects it to. Jason isn't sure that it can feel anything other than the overwhelming desire to meet its brother and whenever that happens, the darkness fades to grey that it almost looks white.

'You and I are an end. We can never let each other go.'

Jason takes a deep breath or whatever passes as an equivalent of one trapped in this stagnant corner of space, seeing images that are not possible.

'I know this sounds bad, national demographic for teenage suicide, but why am I not dead?'

'You are. You are. You _are_.'

He winces at the resounding echos, trying to pinpoint the Black Entity's location.

'Why am I still here?'

All of the sudden, the Black Entity wraps around him and Jason can feel himself drown in its coils. Briefly, he panicks, kicking and clawing as he tries to fight himself out from the dark. He imagines that this is what would have been like had he suddenly revived in his grave, no help, no ring, probably in a suit like a proper society boy instead of his few earthly remains. If the Black Entity feels pain it does not show it and hums and waits in silence as Jason slowly tires himself out.

'You will be a gift.' It purrs, tasting his tears. 'A magnificent, magnificent gift.'

.

Ra's Al Ghul sees the extraordinary sight of a boy hanging upside down in the air, skimming his fingers through the lustrous waters and watch them glow. The guards, behind him and around the pit, all clench their weapons nervously, clearly at a loss. The boy is obviously an intruder but has yet to show any hostility. At least, not yet.

"What do you call this place?" The boy asks in a blank monotone, sucking on the tip of his fingers and gagging at the taste. He shudders, his lips dyed temporarily green before restored to its usual pallor.

"It is called the Lazarus Pit."

The boy hums, no, not a boy—a _thing_, rerighting himself with a dramatic flourish, a subtle dimness cast about his shoulders making him seem out of place above the brightly lit waters, like a caricature from another dimension.

Ra's Al Ghul inspects him with narrowed eyes, a boy dead and gone a year hence revived and in his possession. The detective is dead and his sons are in mourning, he has all the time in the world to pick apart the secrets of his revival.

"Are you responsible for the boy's resurrection?"

The boy cocks his head. "You mean _Ja_son."

It extends the vowels, mangling words out of pure mischief. "Noo_ooo_…"

"What are you?"

The boy twitches, his facial muscles leaping up and down in horrible spasms that might have been diagnosed as seizures or something worse to the pedestrian eye. Finally, he lands, bare toes digging into the stone at the bottom of the pit. A protective bubble shields him, black where it touches the water.

He's smiling, Ra's realizes, the boy or whatever that is inside of him is trying to smile.

"I am an end."

.

In the end, it isn't the Lazarus Pit that brings him back. The healing springs blot his scars and eases physical hurts but it is the blackness which decides to bring him back. He remembers waking up in the dark, disoriented and weak. But it was the quality of the darkness that alerted him to the change in location, that and the multitude of stars scattered overhead as he stared at the first traces of color he's seen since the death of Black Lanterns.


	2. Chapter 2

**Title:** Waiting for that one vacancy sign  
**Summary:** Stories from beyond the grave; Jason Todd is a Black Lantern.  
**Rating:** T  
**Notes:** Continuing adventures of Jason Todd as the vessel/avatar of the true Black Entity (oc). It's so hard being a sidekick sometimes. Thank you everyone for the continued hits, alerts and reviews~!  
**Disclaimer:** Do not own  
**Warning:** None  
**Word count:** for this chapter 700+

.

"You remain unavenged."

Jason lies strapped to a bed, not even afforded the peace of sleep as lights shines down on him in a concentrated shaft of sunlight, piercing his eyes and keeping him awake. The Black Entity stirs weakly beneath his skin, like death, pale and broken, unsure in this new world it finds itself in after resurrecting Jason into the hands of Ra's al Ghul. They struggle in unison, the boy who never grew up and the darkness which is the end. But there is nothing for them to hold on to, no convenient key to the locks, no shadows that may slice open an artery.

He pulls his lips back in defiance but even that is a distant memory of better times. His fingers curl, tugging uselessly at his restraints. Thankfully, his throat is too dry for him to respond.

Ra's al Ghul leans over him and in the strong spotlight, he looks like an apparition, a reverent, a ghost. Jason can barely make out a hint of a face, wrinkled like a walnut left out to dry, tufts of gray hair and a beard that lined his throat. 'He dreams of a sunset' Death says silkily before subsiding, tracing the paths of his bones. Jason shudders in reflex, a foul breath washing over him. _I don't know and I hate you, I wish you never brought me here_ is all he manages to think, to say in response before he blinks, caught suddenly off guard by his captor's words.

"Why do you say that?" He croaks and the Black Entity cackles as though it knows the answer, as though he should know the answer. "I'm not... I won't!" He cries out, thick bands cutting into his flesh. But he can't stop struggling, to keep fighting like his very last moment when he was beaten and left for dead. Part of being a Robin is his ingenuity. There has to be a way out, he is sure of it.

The man looms, his expression unreadable.

"You will be the death of many." He repeats. "But you knew that already, did you not?"

.

"Grayson, you are being unreasonable!" Damian howled, all but tearing at his yellow cape.

Dick shrugs him off easily, effortlessly, imbued with a sense of purpose the came from having a brother in need. "I saw him Damien." He insists to the ire of the youngest Robin. "We saw him. It was Jason."

"Dick" Oracle sighs through the speakerphones, an unwilling mediator in the thick of things now that Tim Drake had left. "Jason is dead."

"Ask the Justice League!" Dick shoots back, angry at the lack of support. "Ask the Teen Titans, ask anyone what they saw up there."

"He is a Black Lantern." Damien hisses, fists flexing and unflexing at his side.

"He saved the _world_." Dick throws off his cowl, having it land haphazardly on the chair behind him. Damien winces at the brazen mistreatment of his father's legacy and flushes, ready to throw another tantrum. Changing into a more comfortable, civilian outfit, Dick points a finger towards the door. "I'm going to find him. You can either help or get out."

.

'Their power bill must be enormous.'

'At the beginning of time, my brother's audience was paid for in blood.'

Jason had no response to that.

'_Humans_' The black entity sneers, 'You have no appreciation for the gifts that you have been given.'

'I don't see you helping Evil Dead.'

'By nature, you are beyond help.'

'Gee thanks. Maybe you should have thought of that before hitching a ride.'

'You see colors. I thought you an adequate gift.'

'I am an excellent gift!' Jason fires back then regrets it, immediately.

The light fizzles for a brief second, but it's enough for Jason to take notice, especially when his retinas have been burned to pearly whiteness.

It's night out, the usual smattering of stars and the odd constellations here and there. He can't see the moon however and thinks that they might be facing north of going nowhere fast. He feels a creep of something down his spine, like a droplet of water or someone's eyes settling speculatively between his shoulders. While he is distracted, shadows seep in like tar or black paint dripping down the ornate walls. Jason does not know how no one has noticed but is not complaining as the light finally shuts off, plunging him into darkness.

The Black Entity hums, 'It is time'.


	3. Chapter 3

**Title:** Waiting for that one vacancy sign  
**Summary:** Stories from beyond the grave; Jason Todd is a Black Lantern.  
**Rating:** T  
**Notes:** There is something intrinsically wrong about being graded by a person who misspells common words all the time. I mean, you'd think as an instructor, you would have the professional courtesy of spell checking your words considering that English is what you _teach_. In this chapter, we get to see Jason's development as a living Black Lantern.  
**Disclaimer:** Do not own  
**Warning:** None  
**Word count:** 1100+ for this chapter

.

It's laughably easy to escape.

When you're a Lantern, seven bands of a rainbow or otherwise, you can fly, you can float, you can tap dance over people's heads without anyone being the wiser because no one ever thinks to look _up_.

It's like beingGothamin a way, dodging bad guys and taking out scum because Jason is good, he is excellent at sneaky despite his flashy plumage. Walking past the guards is a joke when the shadows cling to him like a cowl. It doesn't hurt that he can walk on air, particles gathering beneath his bare soles like charged atoms.

But inevitably, someone notices his absence from his room. An alarm is raised and men are scurrying about like ants beneath a proverbial boot. None of them are particularly eager to corner him alone. After all, he is the undead teenager with a penchant for being possessed by an incorporeal entity.

And it kind of feels like watching a montage of how many ways a body can be broken as he crushes a skull, brain matter splattering all across his face. The Black Entity assures him that they were marked, the disfavored children of his brother the White. But that doesn't change the fact that doesn't change the fact that he is killing people as he stumbles past the throng of bodies, the guards now too afraid to raise arms. He hears their whispers, Shetan, Satan—the Devil. Jason cries out that they don't need to die, it is not for Robin to decide who to take and who take alive. But the darkness inside of him tears into him viciously in long fluid strips. Was he not the one who wanted revenge for his death at the hands of the Joker? How does he expect to exact justice when he cannot even do what is necessary? Is he that selfish to think that he is the only one who has ever been denied justice?

Jason throws up and passes out or the Black Entity lifts his conscious from his soul. They're all dead. He doesn't think to take back the control until much, much later.

Talia was nice to him during his stay despite all that she is the reason for his captivity. She levels a gun at him and he barely flinches; he is far too busy hyperventilating at the sheer amount of blood covering him from head to toe. They're near the edge of a towering cliff atop of which Ra's al Ghul thought it wise to build his mansion. The Black Entity brought him back and maybe the Lazarus Pit drove him insane, that is the only explanation for what he is seeing right now.

'Yellow' it says thoughtfully, 'intriguing'.

He sees her as a myriad of colors; brassy green fading to gold, hints of violet that race up her torso and around her collar. Jason can't kill her, he won't.

For all its power, the Black Entity is weak against the light. No, it's more correct to say that it is enthralled by it. It loves it, it wants more of it. Whatever light Jason hides in his soul, it wants to taste all of it before turning him over to its brother. So if Jason emotes strongly enough, it subsides, quenched or otherwise supine against the brilliance of mental sensations. He wakes up breathing in cold air, naked save for the skintight material wrapped around his person and the white mark of Death stamped squarely across his chest.

Nausea rolls across his stomach as he falls down on one knee. His hands are steaming with something wet and sticky. He swallows back bile and asks, "What happened?"

Talia arches one immaculate eyebrow, unconvinced of his docility. "You took out twenty of my father's men. You were very... thorough."

"Oh god." They might have been the scum of the Earth but they didn't deserve to die. At the back of his mind, the Black Entity taunts 'hypocrite, hypocrite' for his thoughts, for all he's wanted before waking up was to strangle the Joker with his bare hands. They don't realize it yet, no one realizes it yet and he is only beginning to understand that there is something wrong with him; there is something horribly wrong inside of him.

The Black Entity Death isn't supposed to be here, not on this plane, not where his brother the White Entity can so easily find him and touch. He may be the boy who never grew up, never graduated high school nor go to college, but he's retained enough physics to know that things went bad went opposites collided. He only received a taste when the Black Entity sipped from the healing waters of the Lazarus Pit but it had been enough. He knew and the White Entity knew. "Why did you bring me _here_?"

There is no justice in this world and Jason squeezes his eyes shut, letting out a sob he's been holding in since his revival. Nothing makes sense anymore, not his continued existence nor the certainty that Bruce is alive somewhere, waiting, watching. A hand brushes back his bangs and lightly caresses his hair.

"My father hopes to discover your method of resurrection. I thought you could perhaps return my beloved back to me."

"Bruce isn't dead." He says sharply. Even if the world were to end tomorrow, he would remember that. "He's just... lost."

"Where?" Talia's voice grows intense as she pulls him back to his feet. There are sounds of men gathering and Jason stumbles, knees weak. The blackness is rushing back to him faster than ever, growing bored with the flush of red and green that made up his anger and determination. Something gathers at the periphery of his vision and solidifies, glossy like a strip of glass or plastic. Talia stares at him in mute surprise, the pads of her fingers, smooth but calloused, tracing the edge of the domino perched across his eyes.

"Let me go." He chokes, his voice breaking. The moon is high and the men are coming. Jason doesn't remember what happened when he wandered the streets ofGothamfor three months, comatose, his family unaware of his whereabouts after he fell back into the atmosphere. The Black Entity is calling, thick and cloying like dried glue. "I'm going to bring him back, you have to let me go."

Talia al Ghul's expression is unreadable like that of any vigilante or villain under a mask. Grabbing his hand, still warm and sticky with blood, she leads him to the western rim of the alpine castle and turns him around. She kisses him mouth to mouth, "For good luck" she explains, and pushes him off the cliff.

For a moment, she glows blue.


	4. Chapter 4

**Title:** Waiting for that one vacancy sign  
**Summary:** Jason discovers that death isn't as permanent as everyone thinks it is.  
**Rating:** T  
**Notes:** Is it just me or are these chapters getting longer?  
**Disclaimer:** Do not own  
**Warning:** None  
**Word count:** 1200+ for this chapter

.

Eventually, night draws him back the way it does all of the bat clan. There are always criminals to be punished and mysteries to be solved, the latest being a newsworthy event that has infected the rest of the world. Damien sees it once in their fair city while he was out on patrol alone because Dick had run himself to the ground again looking for clues as to where his wayward brother went after falling back through the atmosphere. Though the young Robin did not say it out loud, he is obviously rattled by his experience and Dick takes up the cowl again to investigate.

Oracle reports nothing unusual on her security net, no shortages, no strange weather or a would-be vigilante blown astray. Only dead criminals greet her birds on the rooftops of buildings, laid out in a circle as though they were dropped from a great height. But it doesn't end there. The phenomenon is reported in Star City, Jump City, where Flash barely manages to catch everyone. Even Superman has trouble penetrating the steeped darkness of their newest enemy and all agree that it is not of this world.

It isn't until a curt remark by a grieving Hawkman that Dick realizes what it is and sets out to prove it.

Bruce is gone. He knows that and Bruce would have never killed.

But could Jason?

Three years since his brother died, Dick can no longer claim that he remembers Jason well. He forgets the subtle quirk of his eyebrows and how his lips curl when he grinned. When he closes his eyes, the second Robin's acrobatics are muted, flawless and dream-like for a boy only thirteen. What he does remember is that he was a bad brother, something he atones for with Damien.

He perches on top of a gargoyle with the grumbling Robin in tow, a home invasion underway below them when the lights go out literally. The entire block is plunged in absolute darkness that has nothing to do with shorted wires or lack of public maintenance. Despite their penchant for the shadows, it is eerie enough to make his skin crawl and Damien lets out a nervous hiss in response.

Dick steels himself wondering if he should have alerted Superman or the rest of the Justice League if Jason is behind what has been killing criminals all across the globe—if he is the Black Lantern everyone's been looking for.

"Please" Dick says softly though he doesn't know what he's asking for. "Let him be alive."

.

In the beginning the Black Entity was hungry, eating whatever scraps his brother threw him as an afterthought, lost souls or the fading light at the edge of the universe. It does not hunt for its own food; it is not a predator but a scavenger. But not everything it finds are dead.

Before, it didn't know hunger, hunger was a fixed state. But now it knows fulfillment like Jason knows it, how he feels it, and wants more. He tries to stop it, bats are not supposed to kill. It's been getting harder and harder to put it off from the hunt. Every time he leaves Gotham he feels small and grey like someone took a needle to his heart and drained it of its emotions.

The Black Entity Death never fails to take advantage and starts teleporting him from Metropolis to Taipei, in the middle of drug busts and gang wars with men and women with black symbols tattooed to their heads. These belong to him, it says, sampling their souls before waving them away.

Like a lioness teaching her cub to hunt, it shows him what a Black Lantern _is_. Jason sees the world in seven spectrums and understands how even the sanest creatures could go mad from the sudden influx of information. He isn't supposed to be alive and he knows it, he even reluctantly accepts it. But the thing riding his skin defies the laws of the known universes, the antithesis of his brother the White. It expects nothing and feels nothing; it does not judge and it does not avenge.

But somehow along their way, they have met each other and they have ruined each other. It is why when he hears the familiar whisper of a cape and boots thudding on gravel and stone, he thinks he is dreaming.

.

Damien is the first to see it. Normally the miniature Wayne would proclaim superior genes, youth, _something_ but for the moment, he is silent, seemingly dumbstruck.

Out of the darkness rises a glowing shape. It almost looks like—

"_Wings_" Dick breathes, quick and sharp through the cowl. "Oh Jay, what happened to you?"

Logically, corpses do not age. But it is not the boy when they think of when they remember him gone but rather what he meant, what he could have been, a valedictorian (maybe not though he did have excellent grades), a vigilante, definitely a hero. He could have been so many things he never got to be, Dick despairs as he stares at the boy who died, who never graduated high school or finish college and feels grief mounting at the sight of his baby-faced little brother and his boyish frame, never filled out as promised, lean and wiry like that of a young bird ready to take flight.

Damien immediately drops into an aggressive crouch to which Jason sneers, dropping the criminals at his feet. They are all unmarked, dead before they hit the ground.

Jason's eyes are ghostly beneath his mask as he taps his chin, a black material covering his skin like liquid latex. It is something Dick only saw briefly in his encounters with Lanterns in the Justice league. His baby brother, the Black Lantern.

He addresses the youngest Robin and says, "You're not the imposter. No matter, you will be gone soon enough."

That is not Jason.

Quickly, he pulls Damien behind him. The Jason he knows would have never threatened a little kid, not even they were little snots. Yell at them, run them off if they were bullying others and stuff them full of Alfred's cookies when he thought that the old butler wasn't looking, but he would have never deliberately sought to harm them.

"Who _are_ you?"

"Red" The stranger wearing his brother's face hums, "For him or for you? It never lasts. It always turns yellow when they set eyes upon us."

Colors, spectrum, Dick tries to scrounge up what he little he knows about the Lanterns and fails. He could contact Oracle but he doesn't want to risk setting off the thing in his brother's skin. He wishes that he had paid more attention when he took up the mantle as the caped crusader but it's too late for that now. The Black Lanterns had been their enemies until the White Lanterns came, but the Justice League reports did contain and encounter with a Black Lantern, separate from others, noticeable in that he did not radiate darkness but swallowed it. The same one he saw hanging over the Lazarus Pit when he tried to revive his fallen mentor.

He grows cold.

"Us? There's more of you? What are you? Where's Jason?"

The domino on its face disintegrates as it pulls back its lips in an exaggerated snarl.

"I'm looking for my brother, don't interfere!"


	5. Chapter 5

**Title:** Waiting for that one vacancy sign  
**Summary:** Jason discovers that death isn't as permanent as everyone thinks it is.  
**Rating:** T  
**Notes:** Sorry about the late update. If anyone's still reading that is :D  
**Disclaimer:** Do not own  
**Warning:** None  
**Word count:** 1200+ for this chapter

.

Let me tell you a story.

Our universe isn't the only one out there. There are many, each splitting off from the decisions we make.

The gangbanger you picked up an hour ago? He had a wife, a son, and they have a hard life ahead of them but will grow stronger for it. He won't kill her one night because the TV broke and the boy won't be left an orphan at thirteen. But in the next universe over, he gets smart. He decides that maybe he won't torture or maim preteen girls today. He stays home, gets drunk, beats on his wife and kid too.

In a fairer world, he'll be picked up the next day.

Probably not.

So the thing is, choices.

In one world, Jason Peter Todd sees the Batman and scrams like a good little boy, content with a single tire that will see him through winter. By spring, he is starving; he's literally licking slime off the drainage pipes just to stay awake. When the Church of Blood offers him a place among their ranks, he is really eager to join.

Of course, Brother Blood doesn't extend an invitation out of the goodness of his heart. He sees what _it_ sees. Todd isn't a portal, a gate or a nexus—he's a nobody!

But he is the next best thing.

One moment Todd's deluding himself into thinking that maybe he's wanted, the next, he's served up on their altar, wrists slit and ankles nailed to the bedrock. He screams and screams but there's no one to help him. Eventually, the brother gets tired of his wailing and slits his throat.

It's probably the kindest thing he's ever done.

Todd dies.

But wonder of wonders, he wakes up next morning in an empty church. He becomes a priest, dedicates himself to helping the poor, the needy, with an occasional foray into vigilantism that even death has never been able to beat out of him. He meets them, us, all of them, you, the kid, replacement, replacement chick, Babs, Gordon, Bruce, can you imagine? Bruce? In a church?

It's funny right, that I could become a priest some place, thou shalt not kill, giving up smoking and drinking, even flirting with Babs.

On the other side of the mirror is Jason Peter Todd born of the Flying Todds. He's a perfect copy of you bird boy. You even wanted to adopt him. It's kind of sick how well you guys got along. Maybe it's because he's a redhead. You've always had a soft spot for redheads.

There once lived a girl named Jane Penelope Todd.

Our stories are the same. She had dark, curly hair, green eyes and an addict for a mother. She grows up tough and street-smart in her hand-me-downs, and tries to steel the wheels off the batmobile. Bruce gets around to adopting her eventually, the look on his face when he found out that 'Jay' was short for 'Jane'.

You had to see it.

She had a crush on you, you know? Her world's Dick anyway. She could do better.

What? She totally could.

They keep in contact. She goes to him after Felipe Garzonas and he takes her to the stars.

Catherine Haywood is dead by the time they get back. She cries for a while but gets over it. So she lost something she never knew she had. Big deal. She runs off with her Dick to Bludhaven though, that tramp. She becomes the next Firebird.

And well, you know what happens to birds on fire.

Hey big bird, did you know that there is a world without you?

It's a pretty swell world you know? The skies a little empty but hey, the old man's got a full house lined up, it's like a regular circus in there. But I'm not cut out to be the eldest, think that belongs to you.

Which reminds me, this one time, you were the youngest. Man, Talia's kid had his work cut out for him keeping us all in line. It kept him on the straight and narrow but between you and me, it's kind of cute the way he worries about everyone constantly. Bruce once had to take us out to the movies just to give him break.

What would you do if you knew you could be bad? That you could do terrible things, that you could... kill people, hurt them, because you're so messed up inside. Honestly Dick? Jason Todd scares me. There's just so much hate. He doesn't remember big bird, about Bruce, Alfie or you. He only thinks he does because no one bothered to ask. But I know. Because I think I was like that when she first found me. Because I understand, I want to kill the Joker too.

Somewhere out there is a Jason Todd who takes the cowl when the old man dies.

A Jason Todd who becomes the Catwoman's stray.

A Jason Todd who lives to become a hero.

A Jason Todd who dies with honors.

A Jason Todd who is wanted.

_And there is me_.

.

Dick staggers back with a gasp, feeling as though he'd been thrust in the bay in the middle of winter and was struggling through the slough of ice and crystal with no way to go but up. But like fighting gravity in a free fall, he can't move, he has nothing, no rope, no leash, no line, no swing to catch him before the inevitable crash. It wasn't the fall that killed. And Jason rose, the white lines of his uniform a stark relief against the pitch of everything else.

Damian snarls, thwarted when his birdrangs sail harmlessly past his predecessor, the only mark of their passage the slight ripple in the air. Belatedly, Dick grabs his arms, restrains him as best he can when he's still reeling from the emotional sucker punch. Oracle's voice is buzzing in his ears before it cuts off, the sudden silence jarring enough to cut the Robin's tirade short.

"Jason...!"

_I died_.

A black film covers the boy's eyes.

_I never got to come back_.


End file.
